


Therapy

by Hello_Spikey



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-10
Updated: 2011-10-10
Packaged: 2019-09-13 08:26:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16889064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hello_Spikey/pseuds/Hello_Spikey
Summary: Spike's hurt. Wes wants to help.





	Therapy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whichclothes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whichclothes/gifts).



> This is for **whichclothes** who asked: _could I have something where poor Spike gets hurt and then comforted? Maybe with Wes involved?_
> 
> Now, I don't normally do H/C. I'm more into H/H, but for you, darling, I've stepped outside of my comfort zone and laid on the comforting! This has Spike/Angel, Angel's a bit of a dick, and Wes comes to Spike's rescue. Late AtS Season 5.

Wes wasn’t completely insensible to the opinions of those around him, in the hard weeks after Fred… after Fred. He saw the flinches of fear from his staff when he walked past, and he definitely heard the words “stone cold asshole” directed his way often enough to be considered a nickname.

He just didn’t care.

But that didn’t mean he didn’t care about others… distantly. The chasm of his grief stood between himself and the rest of the world, but he could see over it. If he preferred the presence of Illyria, always like a sharp knife in his open wounds, well, he could certainly be said to know exactly where he stood with her.

It was Illyria who first pointed out the problem with Spike. After a sparring session she looked down with disdain at a smear of blood on the training-room floor and said, “The half-breed does not defend himself. It is… disappointing.”

Wes glanced up from the read-out in front of him – itself a representation of the scarce-known energy signatures Illyria gave out. “You mean he isn’t defending himself as well as before?”

Illyria’s fathomless eyes felt like pins going through him. “I was not unclear in my statement. The white-haired one does not defend himself. He will not last as a pet.”

Wes was a little surprised he’d missed such an obvious problem, but then, he hadn’t paid attention to Illyria and Spike’s sparring sessions since the beginning – it looked far more fun for the participants than the spectator. Now Wes was concerned, distantly, perhaps, but concerned. “I’ll look into it,” he said.

“Excellent. Your small mind is better able to comprehend his.” Illyria stalked out of the room, the problem, no doubt, already absent from her thoughts.

Wesley finished his work, put his tools away and closed up the lab. He could do these things without thinking. He liked that. It was when the workday was done that the crushing loneliness of his ‘free time’ hit him. He was grateful to have another errand. He drove to Spike’s apartment.

Spike wasn’t there. That was vexing. Wes had nothing to do, so he picked the lock, jimmied the dead-bolt, and set up a hidden camera over a cabinet in the kitchenette. Perhaps that was not what a normal person would do, when concerned about a friend. Wes acknowledged that.

He half expected Spike to arrive before he finished. It was slow work and he didn’t hurry. Spike didn’t not appear. Wes cleaned up all traces of his entry, re-locked the door, itself a fiddly and time-consuming job, and went home to sleep.

A review of the footage showed Spike arrived home just before dawn, drank a beer, went to sleep, and did nothing at all interesting. He was bruised, but that was nothing new. Wesley fast-forwarded through the footage and then put it out of his mind.

Until a few hours later, when Spike planted his fists on Wesley’s desk and glared at him, nostrils flaring.

Wes raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“Why is your scent all over my bloody flat?”

“Oh.” Wesley saved his progress on his open document.

“Yeah. ‘Oh’.” Spike folded his arms. “Did he send you? Don’t tell me you got a hankering to steal my vast stash of nothing. What? He wants to spy on me? I get a few fucking minutes to myself, you know.”

Wesley’s other eyebrow joined its compatriot at his hairline. “Well, that’s a telling response.”

“I’m the one who was fucking home-invaded, Percy. Talk.”

“Who is ‘he’?”

Spike scowled and turned his back. “Like you don’t bloody know.”

Wes sighed. He was curious, but he didn’t have time for vampiric immaturity. “Illyria expressed concern.”

Spike looked back over his shoulder, half-smiling. “Now I know that’s bollocks.”

“She noticed your fighting is off. That it’s bad enough to concern her was enough to make me curious. I wanted to talk to you, honestly.”

Spike drew a hand over his head considering. “So you thought you’d break in?”

“I was bored.”

Spike set his hands on the desk again and peered at Wes. “You’ve really gone ‘round the bend, haven’t you?”

“I have work to do, Spike, so just please tell me what's got you so uninterested in extending your immortal life, and I'll explain to you why you're an idiot, and we'll each go back to our jobs.”

Spike straightened, looked guilty, and folded his arms, huddling in on himself. It was a posture Wes was beginning to recognize in him. After a few seconds, his eyes inevitably drifted back to his calendar.

“Don’t get all bothered. I’ll still be around to fight the big fight." Spike stopped halfway to the door. "Tell Blue I was just takin’ it easy on her, on account of her recent power-drain.”

Wes looked up to see his hand drop from the doorpost as Spike left. He bit his lip and opened a new file, titling it “The Spike Situation.”

The next time he saw Spike, Wes was acutely aware of how he was moving carefully, favoring his left leg. He took note of the fading bruise under his right eye and the way he kept dropping his gaze whenever anyone looked his way.

Spike avoided looking at Angel altogether, in the meeting. He hung by a side wall, arms crossed, looking like a truant called before the headmaster through all of Angel’s initial speech.

In Wesley's head, one and one were neatly added up to two, and he made a quick note on his scratch pad. He almost missed the pause when he was expected to give the Magical Resources take on the current crisis. “Ultimately,” he said, spieling on auto-pilot, “it’s a suicide mission.”

Angel smiled. “We’ll send Spike.”

There were quick noises of assent and relief. Wes shot a glance at Spike, who only shrugged and asked, “Where was that again?”

Wes made another note.

Once his eyes were opened, it didn’t exactly take careful detective work to figure out what was going on. They were as discrete as rabbits. There was the way Angel purposefully brushed against Spike as he left, even though there was acres of room to walk past. Then there was Spike’s expression when they were closest, the whispered word that passed between them.

Wes had the paperwork filed to view security footage from Angel’s office by the end of the day.

He was mildly surprised by his own _lack_ of surprise the first time he saw the two struggling vampires stop fighting and start writhing together rhythmically.

Angel and Spike rolled across the office floor, almost out of the camera’s view. The character of their movements turned back to struggle. Spike kicked Angel away and said, “No. Not this time.”

Angel was well-framed in the camera’s view as he sat up and wiped something from the corner of his mouth. His expression could only be described as nasty – a side Wes couldn’t recall seeing in Angel before. “I know pretending you don’t want this gets you wet, Spike, but I don’t have time for foreplay tonight.”

Spike jabbed his finger at Angel. “You wouldn’t treat a dog the way you treat me.”

“Of course not.” Angel rolled his shoulders. “I like dogs.”

“You bastard.”

Angel stood. “I don’t see you leaving.”

Spike stomped toward the door. Angel stepped in his way. They stared each other down for a tense moment, and then Spike slumped. “Do you even like me?” he asked.

Angel answered by grabbing two fistfuls of Spike’s coat and slamming him against the wall. He pressed their lips together, and Spike’s hands stopped pushing him away, grabbed on to pull him closer.

Wesley stopped the recording, feeling the hot flush of having witnessed an intimate scene.

As his embarrassment passed, he realized it was the first intense emotion he’d felt in months that wasn’t grief. It made him smile, a little, and then made him uncomfortable.

He packed the DVDs up to send back to security and picked up his phone. “Harmony? Do you happen to know where Spike and Angel are, presently?”

***

There was blood smeared on the door to Spike’s apartment, not a lot, but enough to be worrying, in handprints around the knob and edge. When there was no response to his knock, Wes got out his picks and opened the door.

Spike was caught half-way out of his bed, one arm wrapped tight to his middle. When he saw it was Wes, he let himself fall back down with a groan. “Why don’t I just give you a key, then?”

“You’re hurt,” Wes said, closing the door behind him.

Spike draped his arm over his face. “Aren’t you a considerate burglar? Did your little camera tell you that?”

Wes saw the camera he had hidden had been found and torn from its spot on the kitchen cabinet. It lay in the confetti of its own parts on the dinette table. Wes sighed and set his briefcase next to it. “No, actually. I hadn’t thought to check. Harmony informed me that you’d completed your mission and headed straight home. I came to see how you are.”

Spike’s response was a simple gesture. Wesley chose to ignore it and opened a few cupboards. “Do you have a first aid kit?”

“I’m a vampire. You might have noticed.”

Despite that assertion, Wesley found a sad, crushed roll of bandages in the bathroom cabinet, along with a tiny pair of scissors and a nearly-empty spool of medical tape. He brought those to the bedside table and then went to the kitchenette for a beer, a soup-container full of blood, and a mug of water from the tap. He’d wanted a bowl of hot water, but Spike owned neither a bowl nor a means for heating water, other than the microwave.

Spike peeked out from under his arm. “What are you doing? Really?”

Wes sat on the edge of the bed. “Exactly what it looks like. May I see your stomach?”

Spike’s other hand hadn’t left his abdomen since Wes had entered, and blood limned his fingertips where they pressed into the black t-shirt. Spike blinked, sighed, and slowly lifted his hand, a grimace of pain coming over his features as he did so. “’S nothing.”

Wesley carefully rolled the t-shirt up and shook his head. The gash was nasty enough, but he didn’t like the color of it. Even a vampire’s wound shouldn’t leak purple pus. He felt gingerly around the edges of the wound. Swelling stiffened the skin, and there was a slight warmth, which was disturbing in a vampire. He moved up the chest, feeling each rib. More than one caused Spike to wince and curse. “Some of these injuries are old.”

“My medical plan’s shit.” Spike gritted his teeth and reached for the beer on the side table.

Wesley reached for the bandages, cut a piece off, and swabbed away the worst of the pus. “Something has gotten into this wound. It’s not blood, and I’m sure it didn’t come from the demons you were sent to eliminate.”

Spike’s lips left the beer bottle with a relieved gasp. “Fuck if I know, Wes. Think that came from the slimey bugger I beat up last week. You remember, the thing at the docks?”

Wes looked at his inadequate supplies and the slime-coated bandage scrap in his hands. He looked back at the bathroom. Through the open door, he could plainly see the empty toilet-paper holder, the mostly-empty medicine cabinet, the grayish, stiff towel on the floor.

Wes dropped the soiled bandage to the mottled carpet. “Do you want to die?” He asked.

“Fuck off. Already dead.”

“Yes, and I’m sure you think it’s romantic to leave your wounds to fester so the pain in your body matches that in your heart. How very Victorian.”

Spike scowled and tried to sit up. Wes held him down easily with a flat hand over one of his broken ribs. “But,” Wes continued, “You’ve managed to get an infection, despite the fact that vampires don’t get infections. This is therefore a magical wound, you idiot, and may very well end your existence if not tended to properly, and soon.”

Spike looked a little shocked. That was good. “So I repeat the question: Do you want to die?”

Spike looked to the side, lips pressed tight together.

“Spike…”

“No,” he said, short and angrily, like it was an embarrassing thing to admit. “Wanker.”

“Victorian,” Wes countered. “Can you move?” Spike again demonstrated his ability to make rude gestures. Wes rolled his eyes. “I’m talking about moving you to my flat, where I’ll have resources to actually help you.”

Spike looked grey. “I dunno…”

So Wes decided not to bother talking about it. He used the edge of Spike’s filthy sheet to scrape as much of the infected material from Spike’s wound as he could, Spike cursing at him all the way, and wrapped him snugly in as much bandage as there was, which was not enough to cover the broken ribs, but Wes supposed a vampire would be used to that. He reached under Spike, who stiffened and said, “I’m not a bloody girl.”

Spike may not have been a girl, but he was also, it was soon apparently, not fully able to walk. There followed much cursing and negotiating as Wes half-supported Spike to the door, up the stairs to street level, and then into the back seat of Wesley’s car.

Spike was quiet until Wesley opened the door to help him out at Wesley’s apartment building.

Spike held back against the seat, not reaching for the proffered hand yet, and asked, “Why are you doing this, really?”

“It needs doing,” Wesley said. When Spike continued to look askance at him, Wes sighed. “It fills the time.”

Spike took hold of his hand. He leaned against the car for support while Wes closed the door. “Doesn’t mean I owe you anything,” he said.

Spike’s jaw was tight, his eyes angrily focused on the side of the building. Wes studied him a moment. “Was that what Angel thought? That you owed him something?”

Spike’s head snapped around to stare at Wes. “You know what? Fuck you,” he said, and strode away from the car.

He made it one step before collapsing. Cursing, he slapped the pavement with his fist. Tears of frustration were starting.

Wes crouched next to him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “No more questions, I promise.”

“I’m not…” Spike hissed through clenched teeth. “I don’t need your help.”

Wesley supposed it was a good thing Spike couldn’t see him roll his eyes at that. “Come on,” he said again, and helped Spike up. “We’ll see to your damaged body first, shall we? Then we can worry about damaged pride.”

They were silent, of necessity, until Wesley got Spike safely ensconced on his sofa. Wesley kept things cool and professional as he found the correct salve to combat the demonic poison in Spike’s wound, and then as he wrapped Spike’s ribs and gut in a goodly amount of strong, clean bandages. Wesley felt the pride of good workmanship, smoothing the last strip into place. Spike looked much improved, and more comfortable.

“Now,” Wes said, “let’s see to that leg.”

Spike shifted. “Leg’s fine.”

“In all aspects save the ‘supporting your weight’ category, perhaps.” Wes reached for Spike’s knee and was surprised and a little annoyed when Spike flinched. “I assure you, your virtue is safe,” Wes said, dryly, and started feeling down Spike’s leg. The bone was easy enough to feel through denim.

Spike watched him uneasily, and almost succeeded in hiding his reaction when Wes found the break. Almost.

Wes had shifted to the floor, feeling a splint start immediately under the knee. Something was off about the geometry, and he could tell Spike was still feeling pain, but not the extent of damage and if the bone was properly set. “I’m afraid the jeans are going to have to come off, unless you’d rather I cut them open.”

“Leave it,” Spike said.

“This doesn’t feel set correctly, and one thin piece of…”

“I said leave it.” Spike growled.

So Wesley set his thumb against the splint and pressed firmly. Spike clenched his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut. Wesley slowly released the pressure and waited for Spike to open his eyes.

“Doesn’t mean anything,” Spike said.

“This is ridiculous. What are you afraid of me seeing?”

“I’m not…”

“Then take your bloody trousers off. Whether it’s the size of your dick or Angel’s fingerprints on your arse, if you think it’ll change my opinion of you, then you haven’t a clue what kind of man I am.”

Spike stared at him. Something shifted in his expression and he looked away. “You’ll have to help me get ‘em off.”

“Thank you.” Wesley tugged Spike’s boots off.

Slowly the jeans inched down, exposing finger-shaped bruises, lash marks, and a mess of duct-tape holding a piece of lathe board to Spike’s purple-mottled shin. Wesley wanted to smack him, not the least for still wearing such annoyingly tight jeans.

“Duct tape?”

“Did the job, didn’t it?”

Wesley sighed. “It’s coming off.” He set to work snipping the tape carefully away. When he had as much as he could get off without pulling, he stopped and went to the kitchen. He came back with a fresh bowl of soapy water and a bottle of whisky.

“You’ll want this,” Wes said, uncapping the whiskey and handing it to Spike before he sat down to tease the duct-taped splint away from the badly set bone.

It wasn’t a half-hour either of them would want to re-live, but Wes got the useless piece of wood off and the bone re-set with a proper metal splint. “There,” Wes said, sitting back to admire his handiwork. “That should actually heal, now.”

Spike cradled the empty whisky bottle to his chest. “Would have done, eventually.”

“You’re welcome. I won’t even charge for the complete hair removal. Pity you can’t put on a short skirt and show off to your boyfriend.” Wes sighed, suddenly quite aware of his own exhaustion, and began to gather up the supplies. He pushed the trash into a pile and shoved the supplies haphazardly back in the medical kit, planning how to get Spike settled and himself in bed as soon as possible.

“It started when I really was young,” Spike said.

Wes blinked at him, unsure when the conversation had shifted.

“Me and Angel.” Spike shrugged. “Fucking. I wasn’t two months dead and I woke up with this great bloody bastard on top of me. Hadn’t even thought…” he sighed, closing his eyes. “I didn’t know what he was doing, even after the pain. I thought he’d stabbed me.” His eyes opened a slit, and he half-smiled. “Sorry, get me naked and liquored up, and I share.”

Wesley lifted himself back onto the couch. "It must have been traumatic."

"Not really - not then. Just made me angry. Once the soul settled in - it's different. Said I'd never... but Angel was so wrecked, after Cordelia."

Wesley felt the pause and ventured carefully into it. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious.”

“I know it’s not exactly healthy, me and him. You can save the lecture for a TV movie; I can see you have one. Angel treats me like shit and I let him. That’s the whole of it. But if I wanted to, I could just walk away.”

“Then why don’t you?”

Spike sighed. “I’ll need more liquor, and something to cover my todger, before I get into that.”

Wesley considered the option of just going to bed, leaving Spike to stew on the couch, and possibly pretend he’d said nothing in the morning.

“Wait here,” he said.

When he returned with a bathrobe, Spike had moved his good leg up onto the couch and was hugging it to his chest, looking across the room, out Wesley’s windows. From all the struggling, his hair had come loose from its prison of gel, becoming a truant schoolboy’s riot of curls. It made Spike look almost innocent.

Wes handed him the bathrobe. “You’re wrong, about the TV-movie lecture. I haven’t got one.”

“Thank Christ,” Spike said, and dropped the robe across his lap. Which, Wes supposed, was the most efficient use of it.

Wes then handed him a glass and sat beside him with a glass of his own and a bottle. Wes poured them both generous measures. “You have someone. Sometimes, that’s all we need in life – someone to hold.”

“Jesus, Wes. I…”

“Don’t say you’re sorry,” Wes fixed him with an angry stare. “Don’t say that.”

“All right.” Spike lifted his glass in a tiny salute.

Wes felt like the floor had started to crumble under him, but he’d managed to keep walking to more solid ground. He took a sip of his drink and cleared his throat. “You can keep on with Angel, if that fills some need for you, but not if it makes you try to commit suicide via neglect.”

Spike looked like he was going to debate this, but wisely kept his tongue and concentrated on drinking.

“You are valuable, to our cause. Not just because you are strong and semi-indestructible. You haven’t signed a contract with Wolfram and Hart. You’re our only truly free agent.”

Spike grimaced. “Nice to be appreciated.”

“Do you expect me to extol your virtues? Compliment your cheekbones?”

Spike snorted. “One thing about Angel – he does go on about how pretty I am.”

“He’s a lucky man.”

“Thanks, but he isn’t.” Spike tilted his glass against his cheek. “Would you want to put up with this every day?”

Wesley rather thought he would, but it would be a betrayal, of friendship, of Fred, to continue thoughts in that direction. Instead he said, “It’s not a bother. I’m relieved to have someone else to think about, some small good I can affect.”

Spike gave Wesley the oddest look, then. Wesley concentrated on finishing his glass.

“So I can spend the night, then?” Spike asked.

“You’re in no state to leave.”

Spike poked him with one foot. “Got me where you want me?”

It felt nice, the bare foot against his clothed thigh, and though he was bandaged and bruised, Spike was still handsome. Moreso, in fact, the damage added a fragile air to him that made him almost breathtaking. Wesley cleared his throat again and took Spike’s empty glass from him. “Will you be comfortable on the couch?”

“Want to move me to the bedroom?” Spike leered.

Wes stood. “I thought you weren’t to owe me anything.”

Spike’s leer dropped from his face and he looked hurt. “It’s not…”

Wes sighed. “I’ll bring you a blanket.”

Spike spoke as soon as Wes returned. “It’s like a feedback loop. I feel worthless, so I go to Angel, and then I loathe myself for going to Angel. Wasn’t always like that, but it’s the soul. Everything I should have been ashamed of, back then, I feel the shame now, mostly when I look at him. Strongly suspect he feels the same, which is why he can’t stand me.”

Wes sat down. “He certainly doesn’t appear to loathe your company, from the security footage I saw.”

Spike looked uncomfortable. “Didn’t say he didn’t like to put it to me. There’s always been that. Back when we were both evil, I used to, well, I looked up to the sadistic old sod. I used to hope it’d make him approve of me. Now I just want him to admit I’m worth something. But it’ll never happen.”

“He doesn’t deserve you.”

Spike raised an eyebrow. “When you’ve done half the evil shit I’ve done, Wes, you don’t want to get into talking about ‘deserving’.”

Wes spread the blanket over Spike and tucked it around him.

“Got no body heat, Wes. No need to get fancy about it.”

Wes laid down on the narrow edge of the sofa, with his back to Spike. “Fine,” he pulled the blanket over both of them.

“Now you’re really being bonkers. You’ve got a bed.”

“Well, I’m too tired to bother getting to it.”

Spike was stiff behind him, but as Wesley made himself comfortable, slowly the vampire shifted and relaxed.

Spike’s hand rested gently on Wes’ shoulder. “Glad to have you back, Wes.”

“I didn’t go anywhere.”

“Right,” Spike scoffed. His fingers flexed, a gentle squeeze. “Caring for others. It’s a good way out of the darkness.”

Wes turned toward him. “Yes. It is.” And he took Spike’s hand.

Neither of them admitted they weren’t asleep for a long time, but it felt good, suddenly, to have someone holding them out of the darkness.


End file.
